From the web to print and back, Ursula Vernon’s creatures are mighty curious

One day you’re just doin’ your thing, drawing pictures of a platypus flying a garlic balloon and a pear with human teeth when suddenly, blammo: internet celebrity happens.

Such was the case with artist and writer Ursula Vernon when, after creating said toothy pear for a series she calls “Weird Fruit,” that pear suddenly showed up on the online imageboard 4chan with a caption she didn’t write: LOL WUT. Suddenly, what Vernon calls “The Biting Pear” became the “LOL WUT Pear” and it spread across the internet like viral wildfire.

Now, the more I break this down for you the less cool it’s going to sound but I’m guessing there are some of you out there who don’t hang out on web-based communities like Reddit and Imgur as much as I do. (Hey, don’t judge — at least I’m not online dating. Anymore.)

Vernon’s image was appropriated for a meme, which is, at its most basic level, a crowd-sourced online joke. Somebody uploads one photo with a caption and then everyone has at it, altering and re-posting the joke with different references to popular culture and the everyday struggles and accomplishments we can all relate to.

Once you’re familiar with a meme, every time you see a new version of it, it’s like an inside joke that you — and hundreds of thousands of nerds all over the world — are in on.

But there’s a downside to the moment your work of art becomes a crowd-sourced joke that shows up on websites across the internet.

“The downside, of course, is that nobody knows I’m the creator,” Vernon said. “When it started showing up on the internet, I was baffled, but hey, as long as people are having fun.”

Websites that chronicle meme history (yeah, that exists) all list Vernon as the creator, but while I could walk onto Crockett Street tonight and quickly find 10 people who know the LOL WUT Pear, I doubt any would know Vernon’s name.

Lucky for her, she’s more than just a meme-generator — Vernon is quite the accomplished comic artist, and she’s showing a sampling her work this weekend at the Dishman Art Museum.

... and the now-famous LOL WUT Pear.

While she readily admits the LOL WUT Pear has seen more eyes than anything else in her ouevre, she’s got quite the body of work that spans everything from the immensely popular children’s graphic novel series “Dragonbreath,” published by Dial Books, to a collection of amusing animated phalli meant for her more adult audiences.

Dig around on UrsulaVernon.com and you’ll find detailed, colorful drawings of anthropomorphized animals and links to a half-dozen of Vernon’s webcomics, aimed mostly at children. Her two most popular works by far are the “Dragonbreath” books and “Digger,” a webcomic about a no-nonsense wombat who finds herself in a one-way tunnel to a strange, nonsense-filled land.

The “Digger” series can be viewed in its entirety online and features striking, dramatic black and white comic panels filled with snark and adventure. It’s a prime example of the breadth and scope of the independent comic industry, one filled with possibilities for graphic arts-lovers who don’t care for superheroes.

A panel from Digger.

“Comics like my ‘Digger’ will never be anything but small, indie stuff — they’re too quirky and too out-of-mainstream,” Vernon said. “But the internet has definitely ensured that there’s a place for that.”

Before Vernon became a successfully published graphic artist and storyteller, she was just another in the sea of indie webcomic artists.

“Webcomics came first for me, because it was instant-gratification,” she said. “I did a page, I put it online, I got to hear feedback, and that was really cool stuff.”

And that’s how quite a lot of webcomics got their start. The indie comic movement didn’t get off the ground until the ‘60s, when artists like R. Crumb started distributing gritty, sex-filled adult comics in San Francisco.

These days, indie artists can cut the printing costs by publishing online. And let’s hope more do, because Vernon and I can’t be the only ones who think the mainstream comic industry has gotten stale.

“The conventional comic book industry, like Marvel, long since abandoned any attempt to interest me as a reader — you only have to look at the costumes of the women in the ‘New 52’ to see that I’m not their target audience,” Vernon said.

“I think that’s pretty sad. But a lot of little indie comics have jumped to fill in the gap, and are telling really interesting stories.”

An example of Vernon's collage work.

Like Vernon’s work, which is detailed, colorful, child-like and certainly magical, but with a witty bent that appeals to adults, even those who didn’t grow up reading comic books by flashlight in those coveted post-bedtime hours.

It’s striking and engaging and, frankly, my words don’t do it justice — which is why I’ll shut up and let you just enjoy the work she’s letting us show you in this story.